Oy. The decisions one must make during wedding planning… because you can try and put them off for as long as possible but eventually – they needs to be made, y’all. One of those major decisions has hit The Boy and I right smack dab in our collective faces, too. And that decision is – where will we be honeymooning?

From the moment we began planning a wedding, we also knew that we wanted to do a honeymoon. See, one of the major reasons that we’re getting married is because we want kids (not romantic but very true) and, due to our ages, we really do need to start trying pretty soon after we get married. So, a honeymoon would be more to us than a fun trip together post-wedding. It’ll be our last big vacation without kids for a long, long time. Because of that, we really want to do it up right.
p style=text-align: leftSo, we’ve been tossing around ideas for places to go and have been trying really hard to come up with a compromise. I want the beach. He wants history (actually, he wanted to go to a hunting lodge but there is NO WAY IN @*%*% I’m spending my vacation butchering something thankyouverymuch). Anyhoo, we’ve narrowed it down to three options:
strong/strong/p
p style=text-align: centerstrongLondon, England (and surrounding areas)/strong/p
p style=text-align: centera href=http://thebudgetsavvybride.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/London.jpgimg class=aligncenter size-full wp-image-13608 src=http://thebudgetsavvybride.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/London.jpg alt= width=600 height=478 //a/p
p style=text-align: center(Image Courtesy of: a href=http://www.studylanguages.org target=_blank target=_blankStudy Languages/a)/p
p style=text-align: left
The Boy was stationed in England and Wales in the early 1980’s and LOVED it. Unfortunately, due to the political climate of the time, he was never allowed to visit Ireland and that’s always bugged him. Also, one of his good friends (whom I adore) is currently stationed there and it would be fun to see him again./p
p style=text-align: centerstrongCrete, Greece/strong/p
p style=text-align: centera href=http://thebudgetsavvybride.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Crete.jpgimg class=aligncenter size-full wp-image-13607 src=http://thebudgetsavvybride.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Crete.jpg alt= width=500 height=333 //a/p
p style=text-align: center(Image Courtesy of: a href=http://www.lannavacations.com target=_blank target=_blankLanna Vacations/a)/p
p style=text-align: leftThe beach! Yummy food! History! This is the one that I’m pulling for, especially after we discovered the a title=Armed Forces Vacation Club href=http://www.afvclub.com/ target=_blankArmed Forces Vacation Club/a – they offer killer deals on lodging all over the world to members of the armed forces and veterans. We found out that you can rent a fully furnished apartment only 100 meters from the beach for just $53.00 a day. A DAY! Score/p
p style=text-align: centerstrongNew Orleans, Louisiana/strong a href=http://thebudgetsavvybride.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/New_Orleans.jpgimg class=aligncenter size-full wp-image-13606 src=http://thebudgetsavvybride.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/New_Orleans.jpg alt= width=560 height=366 //a/p
p style=text-align: center(Image Courtesy of: a href=http://madeinneworleans.org/ target=_blank target=_blankMade in New Orleans/a)/p
p style=text-align: leftThis is our omigodwehavenomoney option. Neither of us has been there before and, after the devastating one-two combo of Hurricane Katrina and Gulf Coast spill, we loved the idea of helping support the economy with our tourist dollars. Plus, we lurve eating fresh seafood and mocking drunk people (preferably at the same time)./p
So, have any of you made your honeymoon plans yet? How’d you make the decision? Which place do you think we should pick? Are any of you going to (or have any of you been to) London, Greece, or New Orleans? What should we know before we go? In the meantime, you can also a href=http://pinterest.com/kissmytulle/honeymoony/ target=_blankfollow my honeymoon board on Pinterest/a and see what I’m thinking of packing!

Ohhh, the honeymoon. How lovely to take a week away together in a gorgeous locale to celebrate your new marriage! Nate and I were originally thinking of taking a cheap-and-cheerful trip down to the Dominican Republic for a week – but as we quickly learned, traveling during the Christmas holidays is anything but cheap! A pretty bare-bones vacation package was going to run us around $3500USD, and as much as we would’ve loved to jet away to tropical warmth after our snowy New Year’s wedding, we realized pretty quickly that we were much better off finding a less pricey getaway and saving some of that money to get us through the coming months. (Especially since we just totaled our car this weekend by hitting a deer – eek!)

So instead of beaches and blue skies, we decided to embrace the wintertime and book a honeymoon retreat at the Couples Resort in northern Ontario. An all-inclusive week at a 5-star resort right outside a provincial park, in a gorgeous room with a wood-burning fireplace and hot tub is running us around $2000USD – much cheaper than flying to the tropics! And really, when it comes down to it, it really doesn’t matter where we go. Because I’m pretty sure my main focus will just be spending time with my awesome new husband.

[Engagement photo by Haaby Photography ]

So, dear readers…were you faced with a similar financial dilemma when planning your honeymoon? Where did you go? Was it everything you expected?

Much love,